Although they can potentially last decades, heat, moisture and sunlight have a hugely damaging effect on Super 8 footage. Digitising Super 8 avoids the devastation of learning that your precious memories have either lost their clarity or have vanished entirely. In short, the sooner you transfer your Super 8 film to digital and DVD the better. Transferring Super 8 to digital and DVD will protect any old memories that are hidden in the footage of your declining tapes. Converting Super 8 to digital, not only frees up plenty of space in your garage, shelves or the attic; you can also securely protect your memories for decades to come on a format that will not degrade. Transferring ciné film to DVD and digital also allows you to relive your memories on your computer, laptop or mobile, so you can take them with you wherever you go!

It’s uncommon to own consumer-grade equipment with the capability to convert Super 8 to digital and DVD, but those that do exist on the market are generally unreliable – reproducing a low quality conversion – and are often expensive. Believe us, you don’t want to spend your free time and money on an inferior method of conversion. Instead, EachMoment will collect your Super 8 footage from your doorstep, convert your Super 8 films to digital and return them to you in a slick memory stick alongside an EachMoment DVD, all smartly packaged in one of our Memory Boxes, ready to be gifted or kept personally for years to come.

As Super 8 film ages, it can become dry, brittle and sometimes smell slightly vinegary as a result of degradation. There is, however, still a chance of saving your footage and transferring your Super 8 film to digital and DVD. Before converting the film to digital, it is essential to deep clean Super 8 film using a two pass wet/dry method – we use specialist cleaning fluid, lint free cloths and compressed air. This removes any mould, dirt and smudges, giving your film a freshly polished appearance. At EachMoment, every single tape, photo or cine film is assessed and cleaned on a case by case basis using bespoke tape cleaning methods.

When converting Super 8 film to digital and DVD, it’s essential to use regularly-serviced, broadcast-quality digital telecine equipment or frame scanners – depending on the type of film. Domestic standard scanners are available to buy, however, our customers sometimes recall becoming frustrated with the process if they are not seasoned digitisers, nor is the equipment cheap. It’s not worth putting your precious memories in jeopardy and having a scanner chew up your tapes if you’re a beginner when it comes to Super 8 film digitisation.

Once digitised, the digital file can now be edited to bring the Super 8 film footage to modern standards. Some editing can be undertaken during the scanning process: each individual frame is scanned at a high resolution and provides the option of removing sprocket holes and spaces between frames. The scanner’s software then re-assembles the frames into a continuous film, removing flickering and leaving you with a more seamless viewing experience. Some people prefer the retro feel of including the sprocket holes and frame edges, in which case no editing is required.

Ciné films like Super 8 are especially vulnerable to discolouration. After the film has been captured as a digital file, we use various software programmes to correct the colour away from the magenta end of the spectrum commonly associated with old film. Brightness adjustments and enhancements are accordingly applied as the film is captured or in post-processing, and resizers and filters are algorithmically applied to remove artefacts.

Once these steps are complete, your Super 8 film is fully converted to digital and DVD, giving your footage a new lease of life. It’s now time to relive your newly restored footage. Preserving your precious memories and gifting an EachMoment Memory Box to a friend or family member is an especially touching way to remind those closest to you how much you care about them. Whether it be a birthday, Valentine’s Day or Mother’s or Father’s Day, the memories enclosed in an EachMoment Memory Box always make the most thoughtful gift.

Popularised by Kodak, the release of the Super 8 film format in the mid-sixties offered a stark improvement to the 8mm ciné of the time by allowing a greater area to be filmed alongside magnetic sound which, at the time, was revolutionary. Although it became massively popular in the late sixties and throughout the seventies, the persistent progression of technology meant Super 8 was largely eclipsed in the consumer-grade home video market by the arrival of videocassettes. Super 8 did resurface as an alternative method of movie production in the eighties, used particularly in indie cinema and music video production, but was discontinued by Kodak in 2012.